There is much attention on optical discs such as a CD (Compact Disc) and a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) as information recording media (media) for recording data, and optical disc apparatuses and DVD recorders have become popular as information recording apparatuses for recording the data on the optical discs.
Recordable CDs include CD-R, CD-RW and the like, and recordable DVDs include DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM and the like. The data recording and reproduction with respect to such CDs and DVDs are made according to predetermined standards.
Of such optical discs, the rewritable optical discs are applied with a defect management, as a means of securing reliability of the recorded data. According to this defect management, an alternate region is provided in advance on the optical disc, and when a defective portion is detected, a list correlating the defective portion and an alternate portion within the alternate region, to be used in place of the defective portion, is recorded on the optical disc. When making a recording or reproduction thereafter, a reference is made to the list so as to avoid the defective region (for example, refer to Patent Document 1).
However, because the alternate region is provided near an outer periphery of the disc, a seek operation to the alternate portion is generated if a defective portion exists within a reproducing region when reproducing the data from the disc. Particularly in a case where the data being reproduced is AV (Audio Visual) data, an inconvenience was generated in that the performance deteriorates due to the generation of the seek operation.
In addition, in a case where the defect management is not applied to the optical disc, the process interrupted when the error is generated while recording the data on the optical disc, and it becomes impossible to continue the recording. Particularly in a case of a write-once optical disc, the optical disc becomes unusable even if the defective portion is small.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-229622